Thursday, February 16, 2017

Don't look away

Large parts of the once thriving Christian community of Quaraqosh in Northern Iraq have been left in ruins. The church in the town, which lies near Mosul, was destroyed by ISIL. Now liberated from the extremists, those Christians who have returned, are struggling to deal with the new reality. Marie Sabri a displaced resident said: ‘‘What is there to
come back to, destruction? Our beautiful city, where we used to live
happily, go to parties, and now we come back to this? To this
destruction and injustice? They burned down homes and this…this is a
tragedy. My uncle’s house has become like this (church) isn’t this
pitiful? It is pitiful.’‘

It actually was better for Iraqi Christians under Saddam Hussein.

Iraq was a secular state and Christians were not targeted the way they have been since the war began.

Apparently once again sister @moonnor27 account appears to have been disabled

0 replies0 retweets2 likes

An Iraqi activist goes silent.

Her Twitter account is (again) killed.

Where's the global interest if not concern?

It's day 122 of The Mosul Slog.

122 days to liberate Mosul and counting.

The city was seized by the Islamic State in June of 2014.

Hayder al-Abadi, Prime Minister of Iraq, waited until October of 2016 to attempt a liberation or 'liberation' of the city.

That was 122 days ago.

What's to show for it?

A few weeks ago, they were claiming they had liberated eastern Mosul.

That's not being yelled as loudly now due to several bombings in that section of the city.

War Crimes a plenty in the city, though.

Human Rights Watch reports:Armed forces fighting Islamic State (also known as ISIS) to retake a town and four villages near Mosul
looted, damaged, and destroyed homes, Human Rights Watch said today.
There was no apparent military necessity for the demolitions, which may
amount to war crimes and which took place between November 2016 and
February 2017. The Iraqi authorities should investigate allegations of war crimes
and hold those responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said. The United States
and other countries providing military assistance to the Iraqi Security
Forces should press the government to carry out these investigations.
The United Nations Human Rights Council should expand the investigation
it established in 2014 on ISIS abuses to include serious violations by
all parties, including the Popular Mobilization Forces (known as the PMF
or Hashd al-Sha'abi), units that were formed largely to combat ISIS,
and are under the direct command of Prime Minister al-Abadi.

“Absent a legitimate military objective, there is no excuse for destroying civilian homes,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “All the destruction does is to keep civilians from going home.”To the southwest of Mosul, Human Rights Watch documented looting and
extensive demolition of buildings in three villages using explosives,
heavy machinery, and fire. Witness statements about the extent and
timing of the demolitions, between late December and early February,
were corroborated by satellite imagery showing the destruction of at
least 345 buildings, including the main mosque, in the village of Ashwa
during that time. Satellite imagery reviewed by Human Rights Watch
showed that the abuses took place after anti-ISIS forces incorporated
the villages into a large network of earthen berms and trenches. Locals
told Human Rights Watch the only armed forces in the areas taken from
ISIS were different groups within the PMF.

In addition to alarm of the destruction of homes, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released the following:

With a new phase in the Mosul offensive poised to begin, Iraq’s
Humanitarian Co-ordinator, Lise Grande, toured UNHCR’s Hasansham U3
displacement camp and the government-built Khazer M1 camp, east of
Mosul, where UNHCR has also provided support and distributed emergency
items.More than 82,000 people have been provided with shelter and emergency
items in UNHCR-supported camps to the east of Mosul since the start of
the offensive in October. Humanitarian agencies, working with the Iraqi
government, are preparing for a new outflow of civilians from western
Mosul. Construction work is beginning at a new site south of Mosul to
provide additional shelters. Only a small number of families from
densely-populated western Mosul have managed to escape and are staying
in displacement camps, including Hasansham and Khazer.UNHCR has completed seven camps, including Hasansham U3, and two more
are under construction. The agency is currently able to provide some
11,000 families (66,000 people) with shelter as part of the Mosul
response, a figure which should expand to 20,000 families (120,000
individuals) in the near-term once land is allocated. By the end of
March, it is anticipated that the Government of Iraq and humanitarian
partners would have built camps and emergency sites to potentially host
41,155 families (246,930 people) in camps and emergency sites.“We anticipate the next phase in the battle for Mosul will be an even
bigger test for the humanitarian community”, said UNHCR’s
Representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, who was visiting the displacement
camps along with Iraq’s Humanitarian Co-ordinator. “We are preparing
for the worst, but hoping for the best.”Some 153,894 people remain displaced, having fled from Mosul and
surrounding areas since October 17. At the same time, more than 46,000
people from Mosul and surrounding areas have returned to their places of
origin, eager to return home and rebuild their lives.However, some returnee families also have gone back to the camps due
to insecurity and a lack of basic services in their areas of origin. Ms.
Grande stressed that returns should be safe, dignified and voluntary.
“You cannot force people to go home. People have to make that choice on
their own. They have the right to decide”, she said.For more information please contact:Caroline Gluck gluck@unhcr.org +9647809207286 @carogluck
Andreas Needham needham@unhcr.org +9647809207282 @andreasneedham

How bad is The Mosul Slog going?

AP reports, "The United Nations says it's temporarily
pausing aid operations to neighborhoods in the eastern half of the Iraqi
city of Mosul as attacks by the Islamic State group continue to inflict
heavy civilian casualties there."

Meanwhile, Patrick Cockburn (INDEPENDENT) types:The Iraqi armed forces will eventually capture west Mosul, which is
still held by Isis fighters, but the city itself will be destroyed in
the fighting, a senior Iraqi politician has told The Independent in an
interview.Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish leader who until last year
was the Iraqi finance minister and prior to that the country's
long-serving foreign minister, says that Isis will fight to the last man
in the densely-packed urban districts it still holds."I think
west Mosul will be destroyed," says Mr Zebari, pointing to the high
level of destruction in east Mosul just taken by government forces. He
explains that Isis is able to put up such stiff resistance by skilful
tactics using networks of tunnels, sniper teams and suicide bombers in
great numbers. He adds that no date has yet been set for the resumption
of the Iraqi government offensive into west Mosul, but he expects the
fighting to be even tougher than before.

Cockburn goes on and on.

He never notes that Parliament voted Zebari out last fall as Minister of
Finance due to corruption -- or that Iraq's high court upheld his
removal from the post.

Doesn't mean Mosul won't be destroyed, doesn't mean it will.

It does mean if you're listing Zebari's credit, you include that he was
voted out for corruption. (Zebari has maintained his innocence and
insists that this is plot on the part of former prime minister and
forever thug Nouri al-Maliki to stage his own comeback.)

f Islamic State is driven
from its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, it will switch tactics to wage an
insurgency from mountains and deserts, a top Kurdish intelligence
official has told Reuters.

Lahur Talabany, a senior figure in Kurdistan’s
counter-terrorism efforts, also expressed concerns that another group
similar to the Sunni Muslim Islamic State could emerge to menace Iraq
again if political leaders fail to secure reconciliation between sects.

RUDAW notes, "At least 15 people have been killed and another 50 wounded in a suicide
truck bombing in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighbourhood on Wednesday, Reuters
reported citing security sources." Also yesterday the US Defense Dept announced:Strikes in IraqFighter aircraft and rocket artillery conducted five strikes in
21 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s
government:-- Near Kisik, two strikes damaged a tunnel.-- Near Mosul, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit;
destroyed three vehicle bomb facilities, two improvised explosive device
facilities, a weapons facility, an ISIS-held building, an excavator, a
supply cache and a command-and-control node; damaged five supply routes
and a supply cache; and suppressed three mortar teams.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIS to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in
counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a
strike.

The Iraqi National Accord (INA) political coalition led by Vice
President Ayad Allawi has accused Iran of violating Iraq’s sovereignty
on its territorial waters over strategic waterways leading to the
Arabian Gulf, and has urged the Iraqi government to take action.The INA said in a statement yesterday that “Iraq’s rights are today
in danger after Iran escalated its campaign to acquire further gains [at
Iraq’s expense],” adding that the gains coveted by the Iranian regime
where both “from the river side of the Shatt Al-Arab or on the sea
[boundary].”

The statement also accused Iran of “continuing its advance [on Iraqi
territory] at a rapidly quickening pace and against Iraq’s sovereign
maritime rights both in the Arabian Gulf and in international waters,”
and said that Iran was demanding control and sovereignty over Iraqi
ports.

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I'm a black working mother. I love to laugh and between work and raising kids, I need a good laugh. I'm also a community member of The Common Ills. Shout outs to any Common Ills community members stopping by. Big shout out to C.I. for all the help getting this started. I am not married to Thomas Friedman, credit me with better taste, please. This site is a parody.